This Divorce Stresses Kids Out Most: Article Analysis

The topic of this paper is the negative effects of divorce on children. More importantly the negative mental effects of divorce. This purpose for this paper is to critique a magazine article titled “This Divorce Arrangement Stresses Kids Out Most” that was published by Times magazine, by comparing the information presented in this article to two different academic articles.

“This Divorce Arrangement Stresses Kids Out Most” is an article published by Times magazine. This article shows how the effects of divorce arrangement can put stress kids out. The author Mandy Oaklander, explains how divorces not only affect the two individuals in the relationship but the children that they may have together. She specifically states that the constant

Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Andrew J. Cherlin, and Kathleen E. Kiernan is a discussion whether if parental divorce affects adolescents. The methods that they used to measure the effects were by interview, but at a specific age. The ages that they would interviewed would be at ages 7, 11 and 16. According to Cherlin, Chase-Lansdale and Kiernan they used these ages because “they represented important transition points in the children's educational careers”(Cherlin,1995,1617). Information was gathered from the parents and teachers. Teachers would ask about their performance in school, parents would be asked information about their well-being at home .They found that children of divorced parents has negative consequences. These consequences include the risk of a 39% increase of psychopathology, or the scientific study of mental disorders. It also says that later divorces are less likely to remarry. A factor that may come into play with the divorce is that the child was already facing pre-existing problems with the joint parents. Problems like family disfunction and economic difficulties. The researchers also included that they found no negative mental effects on 16 year old adolescents. When it came for the the 16 year olds to be in their 20’s that is when the negative effects of the parental divorce came

The first thing the researchers asked was that if divorce was associated with mental health problems. First thing that Strohschein did in the process was to compare children who has divorced parents to children who didn’t. The sample size that Strohschein uses is children ages 0 to 11 years of age. She states that she “compared differences in depression, antisocial behavior, and hyperactivity at initial interview” (Baydar, 1988; Block, Block, & Gjerde, 1986; Cherlin, Chase-Lansdale, & McRae, 1998; Doherty & Needle, 1991; Strohschein, 2005; Sun, 2001 as cited in Strohschein,490). She provides additional studies to explain how that children who suffered from depression at the first interview were more likely to have divorced parents. After testing these two different groups, the final results showed that children’s parents that divorced between 1994 and 1996 showed high signs of depression, antisocial behavior, and hyperactivity. Comparing to the children that had parents that stayed married in 1996 were identified as normal. Strohschein took into account what made these children become depressed. She thought that socioeconomic problems in the family made them become separated. With the constant